A Call for Paper Proposals on the Socioeconomic Impact of Proposition 209
Proposition 209, California’s anti-affirmative action initiative, went into effect in 1997. Much of the research on Proposition 209 in the decade since has focused on the impact of the initiative in higher education admissions. There has been comparatively little research examining the impact of the initiative on public employment and contracting, and even less that looks at the broader secondary socio-economic impacts of the initiative. These issues are becoming increasingly crucial to examine as proponents of Proposition 209 seek to place similar measures on the ballot in a number of other states.
In the fall/winter 2007, the California Coalition to Analyze the Impact of Proposition 209 (Impact 209) and a number of institutions at UCLA will sponsor a symposium to examine and discuss the 10-year impact of Proposition 209 and of the concurrent reduction of race- and gender-conscious equal opportunity programs in the public sphere.
This symposium will merge a discussion of existing scholarship with new research on how the socioeconomic conditions of women, people of color, and the State as a whole have been impacted by these changes.
To this end, the symposium sponsors have issued a call for paper proposals (see CFP here).
Abstracts and proposals must be received by June 15, 2007. They will be reviewed with the assistance of an advisory committee (in formation) of researchers and practitioners. Authors will be notified of selection by July 17, 2007.
Please include participant name, institutional affiliation, mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses on the cover page. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words. Proposals for large, empirical studies should be no more than 5 double-spaced pages and should include a separate 250-word abstract. Such proposals should describe a) the parameters of the research; b) the data sources to be used; c) an indication of the amount of work already completed and the paper’s expected length; and d) initial conclusions/results, if available. Electronic submissions are preferred.
We will provide significant honoraria to authors completing large, empirical studies and more modest honoraria to other authors. Lead authors are expected to be available to participate, with a draft manuscript, in a symposium in Fall 2007 or early 2008 at UCLA. (October 26-27, 2007 are dates currently being considered.)
Court of Appeal Rules That Federal Law Trumps Proposition 209
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights announced last week that a California Court of Appeal ruled April 18 that a San Francisco ordinance requiring outreach to minority- and women-owned businesses in City contracting may be mandated by federal equal protection, notwithstanding Proposition 209, the State’s anti-affirmative action initiative.
The decision reverses a key element of a previous trial court ruling, holding that the trial judge failed to consider whether the City is constitutionally required to implement a race- and gender-conscious affirmative action program in light of substantial evidence of discrimination in City contracting. In its decision, the Court of Appeal stated that the trial court “assumed that [Proposition 209] is the last word. It is not. The federal equal protection clause is the last word.”
Civil rights advocates who filed a brief in support of the City applauded the ruling. “The Court of Appeal has made clear that public entities have a constitutional duty to make sure that taxpayer dollars are not funneled into a discriminatory contracting system,” said Oren Sellstrom, Associate Director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and counsel for the Coalition for Economic Equity, a coalition of minority- and women-owned business groups.
“This decision opens the door for cities and counties across the State to maintain or reinstate minority business programs, if that is necessary to break down ‘old boys’ contracting networks,” Sellstrom added. Bingham McCutchen LLP, a private law firm acting on a pro bono basis, also represented the Coalition in the appeal.
As the Assistant Director of the Lawyers’ Committee at the time, Eva Paterson was instrumental in getting the original ordinance passed in 1984. The Lawyers’ Committee, along with the Asian Law Caucus and MALDEF, represented the Coalition for Economic Equity when the ordinance was challenged by the Associated General Contractors in the late 1980s. Now EJS President, Paterson has worked with Sellstrom, a fellow Texan, for many years in defense of race conscious public policy.
Sellstrom cited the massive volume of evidence that the City of San Francisco has collected over the years, documenting ongoing discrimination against minority-owned (MBE) and women-owned (WBE) businesses in the awarding of City contracts.
For example, as the Court of Appeal noted, recent public hearings drew 134 individuals, who testified to such barriers as City inspectors who impose more onerous requirements on them than on non-minority contractors and subject them to more rigorous background-vetting despite extensive qualifications.
MBE/WBE contractors also testified that City staffers would blame MBE and WBE contractors for project delays, knowing they were not actually responsible for them, and would routinely extend non-minority business contracts rather than putting them out for a new bid, thus limiting opportunities for MBE and WBE firms.
Statistics also show significant under-utilization of MBEs and WBEs, compared to their availability. While upholding other aspects of the trial court’s decision, the Court of Appeal remanded the case to the trial court to determine, based on this evidence, whether the federal equal protection clause mandates race-conscious programs to remedy this discrimination.
The Court of Appeal ruling is the second decision this month to dismiss legal challenges based on Proposition 209 to Bay Area programs designed to remedy discrimination in the public context.
On April 6, the Alameda Superior Court threw out a challenge to the Berkeley Unified Schools District’s (BUSD) school assignment plan, finding that BUSD does not violate state law when it considers race as one of many factors in assigning students to schools.
Together, these decisions indicate that courts recognize that when discrimination and segregation are found to occur, federal equal protection laws not only permit, but mandate remedial programs, and that Proposition 209 cannot stand as an obstacle to that remediation.
The cases are Coral Construction, Inc., v. City and County of San Francisco (San Francisco County Superior Court No. 319549) and Schram Construction, Inc., v. County of San Francisco (San Francisco County Superior Court No. 421249.) The Court of Appeal case number is A107803.
Covering Race in the Aftermath of the Shooting
Writers at the San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times yesterday covered the implications of Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui’s ethnicity. This would not be an issue if the shooter was white, which demonstrates that race matters in our country — despite the claims of those promoting a “colorblind” society.
Mercury News columnist Lisa Chung writes about the “collective flinch out there among Asian-Americans”:
We feel the need to represent - and also to distance ourselves. First up was the government of South Korea, which expressed its shock and condolences. The Korean American Coalition in Washington, D.C., extended its sympathies “on behalf of the Korean community” and announced a memorial fund for the bereaved Virginia Tech families.
It comes out of genuine concern. And out of fear of a backlash.
We’re afraid others are only going to see the Asian part of the shooter’s identity. Or his immigration status. We’re afraid that the violence will somehow be ascribed to his Korean-ness, or that his legal permanent residency - as repeatedly mentioned in news reports - is relevant to his mad actions.
The Chronicle’s Vanessa Hua touched on Asian American responses to the reactions over Cho’s status as a documented immigrant (he’s been in the U.S. since age eight):
Overemphasis in news coverage of his immigrant status, and stereotyping in general, could influence perceptions of all Asian Americans — not only Koreans — especially in areas with little connection to Asians and Asian Americans, said Eric Mar, a San Francisco school board member who is Chinese American.
And Connie Kang of the Times focused on the potential backlash feared by Korean Americans and Korean immigrants:
With the memory of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the damage to Koreatown still vivid, and its 15th anniversary less than two weeks away, community leaders said they hoped the shootings did not prompt a backlash against Korean Americans, especially students.
Tamara Nopper: ‘What May Come: Asian Americans and the Virginia Tech Shootings’
By Tamara K. Nopper
(April 17, 2007) — Like many, I was glued to the television news yesterday, keeping updated about the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech University. I was trying to deal with my own disgust and sadness, especially since my professional life as a graduate student and college instructor is tied to universities. And then the other shoe dropped. I found out from a friend that the news channel she was watching had reported the shooter as Asian. It has now been reported, after much confusion, that the shooter is Cho Seung-Hui, a South Korean immigrant and Virginia Tech student.
As an Asian American woman, I am keenly aware that Asians are about to become a popular media topic if not the victims of physical backlash. Rarely have we gotten as much attention in the past ten years, except, perhaps, during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Since then Asians are seldom seen in the media except when one of us wins a golfing match, Woody Allen has sex, or Angelina Jolie adopts a kid.
I am not looking forward to the onslaught of media attention. If history truly does have clues about what will come, there may be several different ways we as Asian Americans will be talked about.
One, we will watch white media pundits and perhaps even sociologists explain what they understand as an “Asian” way of being. They will talk about how Asian males presumably have fragile “egos” and therefore are culturally prone to engage in kamikaze style violence. These statements will be embedded with racist tropes about Japanese military fighters during WWII or the Viet Cong-the crazy, calculating, and hidden Asian man who will fight to the death over presumably nothing.
In the process, the white media might actually ask Asian Americans our perspectives for a change. We will probably be expected to apologize in some way for the behavior of another Asian-something whites never have to collectively do when one of theirs engages in (mass) violence, which is often. And then some of us might succumb to the Orientalist logic of the media by eagerly promoting Asian Americans as real Americans and therefore unlike Asians overseas who presumably engage in culturally reprehensible behavior. In other words, if we get to talk at all, Asian Americans will be expected to interpret, explain, and distance themselves from other Asians just to get airtime.
Or perhaps the media will take the color-blind approach instead of a strictly eugenic one. The media might try to whitewash the situation and treat Cho as just another alienated middle-class suburban kid. In some ways this is already happening-hence the constant referrals to the proximity of the shootings to the 8th anniversary of the Columbine killings. The media will repeat over and over words from a letter that Cho left behind speaking of “rich kids,” and “deceitful charlatans.” They will ask what’s going on in middle-class communities that encourage this type of violence. In the process they may never talk about the dirty little secret about middle-class assimilation: for non-whites, it does not always prevent racial alienation, rage, or depression. This may be surprising given that we are bombarded with constant images suggesting that racial harmony will exist once we are all middle-class. But for many of us who have achieved middle-class life, even if we may not openly admit it, alienation does not stop if you are not white.
But the white media, being as tricky as it is, may probably talk about Cho in ways that reflect a combination of both traditional eugenic and colorblind approaches. They will emphasize Cho’s ethnicity and economic background by wondering what would set off a hard-working, quiet, South Korean immigrant from a middle-class dry-cleaner-owning family. They will wonder why Cho would commit such acts of violence, which we expect from Middle Easterners and Muslims and those crazy Asians from overseas, but not from hard-working South Korean immigrants. They will promote Cho as “the model minority” who suddenly, for no reason, went crazy. Whereas eugenic approaches depicting Asians as crazy kamikazes or Viet Cong mercenaries emphasize Asian violence, the eugenic aspect of the model minority myth suggests that there is something about Asian Americans that makes them less prone to expressions of anger, rage, violence, or criminality. Indeed, we are not even seen as having legitimate reasons to have anger, let alone rage, hence the need to figure out what made this “quiet” student “snap.”
Given that the model minority myth is a white racist invention that elevates Asians over minority groups, Cho will be dissected as an anomaly among South Koreans who “are not prone” to violence-unlike Blacks who are racistly viewed as inherently violent or South Asians, Middle Easterners and Muslims who are viewed as potential terrorists. He will be talked about as acting “out of character” from the other “good South Koreans” who come here and quietly and dutifully work towards the American dream. Operating behind the scenes of course is a diplomatic relationship between the US and South Korea forged through bombs and military zones during the Korean War and expressed through the new free trade agreement negotiations between the countries. Indeed, even as South Korean diplomats express concern about racial backlash against Asians, they are quick to disown Cho in order to maintain the image of the respectable South Korean.
Whatever happens, Cho will become whoever the white media wants him to be and for whatever political platform it and legislators want to push. In the process, Asian Americans will, like other non-whites, be picked apart, dissected, and theorized by whites. As such, this is no different than any other day for Asian Americans. Only this time an Asian face will be on every television screen, internet search engine, and newspaper.
This article was posted to the National Immigrant Solidarity Network listserv. Tamara K. Nopper is an educator, writer, and activist living in Philadelphia. She can be reached at tnopper@yahoo.com.
AAJA Media Advisory: Coverage on Virginia Tech Shooting Incident
The Asian American Journalists Association yesterday issued a press release urging media covering the tragedy to “avoid using racial identifiers unless there is a compelling or germane reason.”
“There is no evidence at this early point that the race or ethnicity of the suspected gunman has anything to do with the incident, and to include such mention serves only to unfairly portray an entire people. The effect of mentioning race can be powerfully harmful. It can subject people to unfair treatment based simply on skin color and heritage,” said the release.
The suspected gunman has been identified in media reports as Cho Seung-hui, 23, a legal non-citizen resident originally from South Korea.
AAJA reminded members of the media that the standards of news reporting should be universal and applied equally no matter the platform or medium, including blogs.
The organization, representing approximately 2,000 reporters, editors, photographers and executives in the industry, also encouraged journalists to refer to style and reference books, including AAJA’s “How to Cover Asian America.”
The Asian American Journalists Association is a non-profit professional and educational organization with approximately 2,000 members across the United States and in Asia. Founded in 1981, AAJA has been at the forefront of change in the journalism industry. AAJA’s mission is to encourage Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) to enter the ranks of journalism, to work for fair and accurate coverage of AAPIs, and to increase the number of AAPI journalists and news managers in the industry. AAJA is an alliance partner in UNITY Journalists of Color, along with the Native American Journalists Association, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and National Association of Black Journalists. For more information, visit www.aaja.org.
‘Lessons Learned After Imus’
By Aysha Hussain on DiversityInc.com
Now that the 10-day Don Imus controversy has come to an end, and the Rutgers University’s women’s basketball team has forgiven him for his remarks, many are wondering who will replace Imus and who will be next to get the ax? What does this controversy that has captured the attention of most of the country say about free speech, our ability to forgive, and the future of other commentators?
The Imus scandal has triggered a growing debate about freedom of expression and forgiveness. After a week of apologies and a face-to-face meeting last night, Rutgers’ women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer said the team accepts Imus’ apology. Stringer said although she still finds Imus’ statements unacceptable, she hopes the incident will help to bring about a change in society in how we treat one another.
Ifill on Imus
Gwen Ifill, senior correspondent for “The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” and the moderator of “Washington Week,” shares her own experiences with Don Imus’ racism in an op-ed published today in the NY Times:
For all their grit, hard work and courage, the Rutgers girls got branded “nappy-headed ho’s” — a shockingly concise sexual and racial insult, tossed out in a volley of male camaraderie by a group of amused, middle-aged white men. The “joke” — as delivered and later recanted — by the radio and television personality Don Imus failed one big test: it was not funny.
The serial apologies of Mr. Imus, who was suspended yesterday by both NBC News and CBS Radio for his remarks, have failed another test. The sincerity seems forced and suspect because he’s done some version of this several times before.
I know, because he apparently did it to me.
